


Just in Time for Christmas

by JMilz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28213965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMilz/pseuds/JMilz
Summary: Hermione returns to England just in time for Christmas, but she is not sure she has the answers Harry wants from her.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15
Collections: Harry Potter Fanfiction Club Presents: Christmas 2020





	Just in Time for Christmas

He had a beard.

When did he grow _that_?

Was it after she left four summers ago? A change in pace to match her own? Or was it when he broke up with Ginny? Maybe it was just a new look for winter. There was really no way of knowing.

She hated that she didn’t know.

It suited him, the beard. His jaw was strong — squarer than she remembered, likely from his active lifestyle as an Auror. It made sense to frame it, even if she wasn’t used to it yet.

_Yet._

That was assuming she would ever see him again.

Nervously, she pushed open the door, cringing as the bell announced her entrance. Before she could take cover behind the nearby faux tree, green eyes were pinned upon her.

They widened.

“Hermione?”

He stopped wiping the glass in his hands and hurriedly emerged from behind the bar. His arms wrapped around her, warm and inviting and everything she remembered — but it had been so long . . . too long. She pulled away.

“Hey, Harry.”

“I — when did you — ? Hold on, I can take my lunch . . .” he said, heading back behind the bar. “I — I can’t believe you’re here. It’s been . . . what? Five years?”

He slipped into the backroom, his warmth disappearing with him.

“Just about,” she said, raising her voice so he could hear her. “I — er — I stopped at the Auror Office but they said you weren’t doing desk work . . . I thought they’d given me the wrong address when I got here.”

“No, it’s the right one! Just er — just let me clock out so we can chat. My boss doesn’t like me visiting on the job . . .”

Somehow, it felt strangely like their days back at the Ministry of Magic. 

Hermione peeled off her jacket and folded it over her arm, trying to ignore the sounds of Harry fumbling in the back. It reminded her too much of all the times he hurried his paperwork so they could get lunch, or when he would pat himself down to make sure he could pay for her morning coffee.

She never allowed him to, of course. But he always tried.

After a few minutes, she quietly muttered _“Scourgify!”_ in the direction of the glass he had been cleaning. Leave it to him to do things the Muggle way for the sake of appearances.

He nearly caught her in the act.

“Sorry about that. Like I said, my boss will have my hide if I’m screwing off on the clock . . .” He chewed on his lip. “So how long are you here?”

“For good, actually. I moved back.”

“Really?” he breathed. “When’d you do that?”

“Yesterday. Just in time for Christmas.”

“ _Y_ _esterday,_ ” he repeated. “Okay, so this is new then.”

“Very.”

He cleared his throat. “Do you want to — er — take a walk or something? Sorry, I know it’s kind of . . . stuffy . . . in here . . .”

“Er — yeah, I could go for a walk.”

“Great,” he breathed. “How cold is it?”

“Not that bad.”

Hermione led the way, once again cringing as the door rung at them on their way out. She heard a strangled noise from over her shoulder and smirked. The Chosen One had grown soft.

“You said it wasn’t that bad!” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “It’s bloody freezing!”

“Oh, you’re being dramatic. I’m not even wearing a jacket.”

“Yeah, well some of us didn’t live in Bulgaria for the last five years!”

Hermione’s stomach sank as he fell into step beside her. There was the smallest iota of bitterness in his tone, and he had every right for it to be there.

“It wasn’t _quite_ five years,” she muttered.

“It was close enough.”

“I suppose.”

Silence fell around them for a few moments, filled only by the idle chatter of other passing pedestrians and the London traffic. It was as they reached an intersection that Harry hugged himself and asked, “So how is Krum doing? Must be hard with the Quidditch season going and all.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in six months.”

The light beckoned them forward and Hermione briskly made her way across the street. Somehow, she feared Harry’s gaze more than ever, just then. It was embarrassing, having failed another relationship, but there was more to it with Harry.

The silent invitation was subtle. He had never done well with subtle.

“But — but I thought you —”

“We were,” Hermione said hurriedly. “For . . . awhile. We erm — we broke up.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine. We aren’t on bad terms or anything, it’s just . . . Well, we don’t really have much in common, do we?”

What a massive understatement that was. Viktor Krum was sweet, but other than that, there wasn’t much to him. His entire world was Quidditch and cameras and newspapers, and while that may have impressed most women, Hermione loathed it. 

She had been trying to avoid the spotlight since the war, yet it was impossible when she was the fiancée of a world-famous Quidditch star.

“Wasn’t a bad bloke, though.”

“Neither was Ron.”

Harry snorted. “I suppose that’s true.”

Silence again.

There had been so many years of it between the two of them. Silence about Ginny’s new job at Beauxbatons. Silence about Hermione’s breakup with Viktor. Silence about her strange friendship with Malfoy and Harry’s promotion and Ron’s engagement.

_Silence, silence, silence._

“ _Ahem_. I erm — I saw Ginny in the paper.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I saw she erm — I saw she took that job in France.”

“As soon as the offer was official.” 

He kicked a rock with much more force than he needed to. He never grew out of that — that aggressive energy that so few witnessed. Perhaps she was lucky to see it. Perhaps it meant he still trusted her.

 _Did_ he still trust her?

“Are you okay with it?” 

He shrugged. “She can do what she wants.”

“And you don’t miss her?”

“Not in the way you mean.”

She took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure what to make of that. In truth, she wasn’t sure what to make of anything anymore.

“When did you grow the beard?”

“When I started working undercover.”

“Bad disguise,” she joked. “You didn’t even cover your scar!”

“Yeah well, it’s better when I actually have the glamour charms on.” His pace hastened as they reached a steep hill. “I look a bit weird with brown eyes though. And they forced me to do a stupid pointy Malfoy nose.” 

“Harry Potter, twenty-seven years old and you’re still on about your school bully.”

“My school bully that wanted me and everyone I loved dead,” Harry muttered.

“You have to forgive him _someday_.”

“Why? Because _you_ did?”

 _“Because it’ll make you feel better . . ._ He thinks about you a lot, you know.”

“And you only know that because you’ve been writing to him for five bloody years but couldn’t bother sending me so much as a postcard. It feels pretty bad to know my best friend was too busy making niceties with Draco Malfoy to find five minutes to owl me.”

“He’s changed. And besides, you were with _her,_ ” Hermione mumbled. “I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“A favor? You’re my best friend, Hermione. Disappearing was hardly doing me a favor.”

They passed by a honking bus. Hermione was rather thankful for the loud interruption.

“Good old London,” she laughed. “Noisy as ever.”

Harry sighed. 

“Hermione, why are you here?”

“You mean in England or . . . _here_ here?”

“Both.”

Hermione groaned. “Do we have to do this? It’s such a nice day, Harry.”

“You had to know I’d want answers.”

“I did . . .” She rubbed her temples. “It’s just — well, it’s hard, you know? I broke up with Viktor and my career was . . . well, it was good but there wasn’t much room for growth. They don’t look at the Dark Arts the same way we do here, Harry. In Bulgaria, I was . . . well, I wasn’t the type of person they cared for. Let’s just put it that way.”

“So things weren’t good there.”

“Not really. This wouldn’t surprise you if you’d listened to me in fourth year, you know. _If you remember_ , Viktor was being forced to take a Dark Arts class back at Durmstrang. It’s customary there — even now.”

“Or you could’ve just told me. You know, in a letter?”

“Harry . . . you have to let this go. It was nothing personal.”

“Then why am I the only one you didn’t write to?”

“I didn’t write to Ron either, for your information!”

“So me and . . . your ex-boyfriend.”

“No, not just you two. I didn’t write to much of anyone.”

“Except Malfoy.”

“I check on him.”

“But you don’t check on me?”

“We — you —”

“I know I put you on the spot but it was a long time ago. Do you really think I’m so immature I couldn’t let it go? Did you really have to avoid me for _five whole years_?”

“It’s not that at all. It’s —”

“I’ve _been_ rejected before, Hermione. It wasn’t like— “

How could he think she rejected him? She wanted him more than anything back then. She wanted to hug him and kiss him and tell Viktor she was sorry but she _wouldn’t_ be going to Bulgaria. She still wanted him. She _always_ wanted him.

“I didn’t reject you!”

“You did.”

“You can’t reject someone that didn’t properly ask you out!”

“I did properly ask you!”

“You didn’t! You asked if — you asked me if I’d date you if you weren’t with Ginny. It wasn’t exactly a fair spot to put me in.”

“I figured you knew what I meant!”

“Well, I didn’t. And even if I did, I would’ve said no.”

Harry frowned. “Oh.”

“Because Ginny’s my friend. It wouldn’t have been fair to her.”

“And if you weren’t Ginny’s friend?”

Hermione sucked in a breath. They had nearly a dozen conversations about _subtext_ , but somehow, he still never quite seemed to understand it.

“I wanted to say yes, Harry. I always wanted to say yes. You just — you just put me in a bad position.”

And he had. What he had been asking of her was wrong, and even if she agreed to it, Harry was too good to go through with it.

“Would it be a bad position now?”

She stopped. The cars and voices of the London streets passed her by, mere whispers on the wind as Harry turned to face her and raised his eyebrows. Was he really asking her such a thing? Had she imagined it?

“What?”

“Would it be a bad position now? If I asked you out?”

Hermione should’ve told him he was mad. She should’ve told him he didn’t know her anymore, and their history was just a faint memory — a memory they could ruin, a memory that was silver and tarnished and far too precious to destroy.

 _It’s not worth the risk,_ she should’ve said. _We’re friends, Harry. We’ll always be friends._

But she couldn’t fight away the small smile.

“Well, I er — around this time of year I like to see the lights . . . and I haven’t had a good curry in ages . . . but — but I mean, are you sure this isn’t a bit mad? It’s been so long and — “

“Gives us a lot to talk about then, doesn’t it?”

Hermione bit her lip. “I suppose it does.”

“It’s a date, then.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s a date.”


End file.
